The Key Habit

Glossary

Urge surfing

Basis
A practice
Last updated
Updated

Urge surfing is the practice of staying with an urge, attending to where it sits in the body and breathing slowly, until it peaks and passes on its own. It comes from mindfulness-based relapse prevention. The whole point is to discover, first-hand, that an urge has a shape and an end. Lesson seven teaches it; the Right now page runs the ninety-second version.


Sources

  1. 1BookBowen, Chawla & Marlatt, Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors (Guilford, 2011)

Terms used

Cue

Whatever starts the loop: a feeling, a time, a place, a screen. Rarely sexual; usually a state you want to leave.

Right now